Thread: my first SP. Maybe???

This does sound like SP.

Are you aware that you should really only be attempting to WILD after a few/several hours of sleep? It's very difficult to WILD when you lay down to go to sleep at night, because your body/mind just wants to get some rest (non-REM/deep slow wave sleep). Learn to work with your body and it's natural cycles not against it, and it will be a lot easier to achieve your goal.

Hypnagogic hallucinations often occur around a similar time as SP, but they are two separate things, and not necessarily linked. You might not start having HH until you've already been in SP for awhile, or you might have HH before you even get into SP.

Breathing becomes labored when you reach SP because the muscles of the chest and throat become paralyzed along with the rest of the body. This is completely natural and normal, and this happens multiple times every single night, but you're usually unconscious and therefore never aware that you experience it. Just remember that anything which occurs physiologically to your body when you are attempting a WILD might seem really strange or cause you to worry, but there's absolutely nothing to be concerned about. Assume that it's all normal and you're completely safe, and try to take your mind off your physical body. The more you focus on your body the less likely you are going to be to achieve a WILD. This is another reason it helps to WILD after a few hours of sleep (besides more REM), because your mind will be less alert. If you're too alert or too awake it will be impossible to WILD successfully, you'll keep getting excited during SP or other transitional states and continue to wake yourself out of the SP before you get very far.

Originally Posted by nina

This does sound like SP.

Are you aware that you should really only be attempting to WILD after a few/several hours of sleep? It's very difficult to WILD when you lay down to go to sleep at night, because your body/mind just wants to get some rest (non-REM/deep slow wave sleep). Learn to work with your body and it's natural cycles not against it, and it will be a lot easier to achieve your goal.

Hypnagogic hallucinations often occur around a similar time as SP, but they are two separate things, and not necessarily linked. You might not start having HH until you've already been in SP for awhile, or you might have HH before you even get into SP.

Breathing becomes labored when you reach SP because the muscles of the chest and throat become paralyzed along with the rest of the body. This is completely natural and normal, and this happens multiple times every single night, but you're usually unconscious and therefore never aware that you experience it. Just remember that anything which occurs physiologically to your body when you are attempting a WILD might seem really strange or cause you to worry, but there's absolutely nothing to be concerned about. Assume that it's all normal and you're completely safe, and try to take your mind off your physical body. The more you focus on your body the less likely you are going to be to achieve a WILD. This is another reason it helps to WILD after a few hours of sleep (besides more REM), because your mind will be less alert. If you're too alert or too awake it will be impossible to WILD successfully, you'll keep getting excited during SP or other transitional states and continue to wake yourself out of the SP before you get very far.

thanx,
and yea i know its easier after rem but i also know you can do it at night, its just harder. i just felt like doing it then so thought i would give it a shot.
and it doesnt seem to hard, it only took 20 mins and once you have sp shouldnt it be fairly easy to go into a dream?
i have tried wild before a few times as a wbtb and it hasnt worked, but first try at night i got sp. maybe my body can do it easier at night. haha

Originally Posted by Qwer

once you have sp shouldnt it be fairly easy to go into a dream?

This is the problem with trying to WILD before bed. You're brain is trying to go into NREM sleep, not REM. You'll be trying to enter a dream that just isn't there.

Originally Posted by dms111

This is the problem with trying to WILD before bed. You're brain is trying to go into NREM sleep, not REM. You'll be trying to enter a dream that just isn't there.

But you still dream?
Just not as vivid or long

Originally Posted by Qwer

But you still dream?
Just not as vivid or long

No, you aren't likely to dream at ALL when going to sleep at night unless you are severely REM sleep deprived. People typically only experience, or remember, NREM dreams during the morning hours. My point about people dreaming in NREM was not to suggest that you should TRY IT, that's the worst idea. I just wanted to clear up a misconception that most people have that dreams can ONLY occur during REM.

Also, getting to SP is the easy part...depending on when you attempt the WILD in your sleep cycle. WILDs are all about timing, and well, you're just not going to have any luck if you keep trying this when going to bed at night. Your body/brain is just not ready to dream at that point, and you'll have to wait a good 60 - 90 minutes before you even enter your first REM period, AND it's going to be very short.

Stage 3 – previously divided into stages 3 and 4, is deep sleep, slow-wave sleep (SWS). Stage 3 was formerly the transition between stage 2 and stage 4 where delta waves, associated with "deep" sleep, began to occur, while delta waves dominated in stage 4. In 2007, these were combined into just stage 3 for all of deep sleep. Dreaming is more common in this stage than in other stages of NREM sleep though not as common as in REM sleep. The content of SWS dreams tends to be disconnected, less vivid, and less memorable than those that occur during REM sleep. This is also the stage during which parasomnias most commonly occur.

Dreaming during NREM

Though dreaming most commonly occurs during the rapid eye movement sleep stage based on there being more dream recall and vividness, dreaming can also occur during NREM sleep.

Research has also shown that dreams during the NREM stage most commonly occur during the morning hours which is also the time period with the highest occurrence of REM sleep. This was found through a study involving subjects taking naps over specific intervals of time and being forcefully awakened, their sleep was separated into naps including only REM sleep and only NREM sleep using polysomnography. This implies that the polysomnographic occurrence of REM sleep is not required for dreaming. Rather, the actual mechanisms that create REM sleep cause changes to ones' sleep experience. Through these changes, by morning, a sub-cortical activation occurs during NREM that is comparable to the type that occurs during REM. It is this sub-cortical activation that results in dreaming during the NREM stage during the morning hours.

Non-rapid eye movement sleep - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia